


I’m not the girl you’re taking home

by jozka



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Clubbing, Dancing, Exes, F/F, Jealousy, basically alisa gets drunk but does not have a good time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:20:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26250319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jozka/pseuds/jozka
Summary: This used to be their place. This small, slightly shabby club, located just on the outskirts of the nightlife district. They used to be let in for free, used to be on a first-name basis with the bartenders. Alisa used to sit in Saeko’s lap even though she’s taller, to take up fewer seats, they used to say as an excuse. They used to dance until their legs gave out, used to shamelessly make out in the middle of the dance floor like they were the only two there.It's been three years since any of that.
Relationships: Haiba Alisa & Tanaka Saeko, Kageyama Miwa/Tanaka Saeko
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13
Collections: Haikyuu Girls Week 2020





	I’m not the girl you’re taking home

**Author's Note:**

> for haikyuu girls week day 6: distance
> 
> title comes from robyn's dancing on my own, which is the song that inspired this whole fic!!

It’s 1:37 AM on a Saturday night, the city is alive and the small club located at the back of an alleyway is packed. Haiba Alisa, a world-renowned runway model —who has made many heads turn her way tonight— slowly makes her way through the crowd of sweaty bodies in wobbly heels, trying to reach the bar. 

She’s drunk. 

Shit-faced, actually. 

Alisa told herself to only have a few glasses of wine, to stay tipsy, to stay reasonable. That all went out the window the second she set foot at the club she used to frequent before her departure from Japan three years ago. 

She thought it would be alright, coming here again, that old memories wouldn’t stir up like the sand on the bottom of the ocean if you just so much as swim too close to it. 

But it did, it all came flooding back.

She supposes coming here isn’t just swimming too close and bothering the sand, it’s cannonballing into the water. She doesn’t remember how many people she’s danced with so far tonight, they were all just one big string of distractions, one after another. Some of them offered her company for the night, which she declined, some simply offered her drinks, and she took them up on that.

“Just one though,” she had said, “I’m not getting drunk tonight,” she had said.

Now, she’s absolutely wasted; she can’t even remember the last time she let herself go like this. She wonders what Saeko would say if she saw her in this state. She also wonders what Saeko would say if she saw her sober.

This used to be their place. This small, slightly shabby club, located just on the outskirts of the nightlife district. They used to be let in for free, used to be on a first-name basis with the bartenders. Alisa used to sit in Saeko’s lap even though she’s taller, to take up fewer seats, they used to say as an excuse. They used to dance until their legs gave out, used to shamelessly make out in the middle of the dance floor like they were the only two there. 

It's been three years since any of that. 

Haiba Alisa has moved on. 

Moved on to greater things. 

Or, greater as in more valued by society: Promotions, bonuses, having a steady income, climbing the ladder, and moving up in the world.

Greater things. 

Alisa is not so sure she’s ever had something greater than the freedom and love she felt when she was with Saeko. 

But a relationship is a two-way street; it’s made up of mutual understanding and compromises. And trust. Alisa’s biggest flaw is probably how she’s prone to jealousy. Distance, well, it put it all to the test, and whoever said that distance makes the heart grow fonder must have been a thousand times stronger than Alisa. 

All distance did was stress her out. They didn’t have time to talk much, with Alisa’s busy schedule and different time zone making sure that Saeko was asleep when Alisa was free from work. It also caused her to worry. Was Saeko doing alright? Did she realize how much better off she was without Alisa there to weigh her down? Did she realize she didn’t need her? Breaking up was a mutual decision, although it felt more like Alisa’s career was making the decision for her. It was a confident woman clad head to toe in Gucci right before Paris fashion week who made the decision for her, not Haiba Alisa. 

But that was three years ago now. 

She’s over it. 

She’s thriving. 

She’s back in Tokyo and on her first night, she’s gotten drunk in the same club that she used to go to with her ex-girlfriend. 

Thriving. 

Alisa reaches the bar and steadies herself. She orders a beer, no more hard liquor for today. None of the bartenders look familiar. She’s not on a first-name basis with any of them, or any name basis at all, they’re just strangers, like everyone else here. She thought she saw Saeko earlier in the bathrooms, but it was just a blonde girl, her hair was shorter than Saeko’s. When Alisa drinks, things that should be buried tend to float up to the surface again. Like bothered sand. She hears a laugh, loud and contagious, a sound that is pure happiness and familiarity. 

Alisa sets her beer down. She isn’t just plagued by her memories anymore, she’s straight up hallucinating at this point. Memories of Saeko, seeing her in strangers' faces, hearing her laugh echoing over the loud techno beats. 

She's inescapable. 

Alisa gravitates towards the sound on instinct, leaning so far out on her chair that a man beside her scurries to hold out his arms behind her in case she should fall off. She doesn’t notice him or his worried gestures, her eyes are locked on two women standing in the corner beside the bar disk. 

One of them has shoulder-length black hair that curls slightly at the end. She’s wearing a dark green skintight dress that shows off the curves of her body. The other is wearing black pants with a matching top. She has short blonde hair, shorter than it was when Alisa used to run her fingers through it, short like the girl she saw earlier in the bathrooms. 

Saeko brushes dark strands of hair behind the other woman’s ear, the same way she used to do with Alisa’s when it got in her face. She’s leaning in to whisper something in her ear and when she pulls back she’s smiling fondly.

Alisa downs her beer and orders another. 

The woman in the green dress is beautiful, with facial features the exact opposite of Alisa’s. She is taller than Saeko, but she must be shorter than Alisa, she can tell because she still remembers where Saeko would reach on her body, and it’s not the same. The two of them are closer in height, Alisa notes, and she is too tall. 

She looks down at her heels, wonders why she decided to wear them again. 

Saeko and the other woman venture out to the dancefloor, they exchange giggles and soft-spoken words that Alisa can’t hear, only witness from afar. When they lean in and kiss under a pink spotlight, Alisa decides to leave the bar. 

A man follows her out onto the dancefloor and she lets him twirl her around for a couple of songs until she leaves to pay attention to the next stranger. She takes off her heels, throws them somewhere behind her without looking. She jumps up and down until she’s drenched with sweat, she screams song lyrics at the top of her lungs at strangers who scream them back before turning to someone else, she laughs and cries and spins until she’s so dizzy she’s forgotten where she is. She dances with a man that tries to lower his hand a bit too far, she dances with another man who asks her if she wants to get out of there. 

She does, but not with him. 

She glances over to where Saeko is slow dancing with her partner. The girl in the green dress is resting her head on Saeko’s shoulder, it looks seamless, it looks natural, like her shoulder was meant just for her. 

Alisa suspects they’re dating.

She can’t just be some random girl Saeko picked up at her go-to nightclub, she has to be someone who has been in her life for a while now, someone who makes her happy, someone who gives her all the things Alisa couldn’t. 

At 4 am, the club starts to empty out. Saeko takes her partner's hand and they exit the dance floor, presumably to head for the wardrobe. 

Alisa stays. 

The volume of the music is lowered, but she’s not done yet, her head is spinning from the alcohol and the dancing, she’s afraid she might fall if she stops. 

She doesn’t fall, one of the bartenders makes sure of it when he approaches and grabs her shoulder to steady her. She asks her to please make her way to the wardrobe so they can close up. Alisa looks around the room. She looks to be the only one left on the dance floor. The lights turn on, she sees that her previously light pink top has a dark stain on it, she can’t figure out what it is or how long it’s been there.

She looks for her shoes, the bartender helps her. Neither of them finds them.

Alisa stumbles downstairs barefoot. The wardrobe queue is long, no one had the brains to realize that maybe they should’ve left the dance floor thirty minutes earlier to avoid the crowd. 

Everyone is too drunk, too loud and too impatient, pushing each other to get further up in the queue.

Alisa sees Saeko again, sees her pick up a leather jacket for herself and a denim jacket for the woman whose arm is linked with hers. Alisa gave Saeko a leather jacket once, for her birthday. She wonders if she still has it, maybe wears it sometimes. 

Probably not. 

Alisa moves up in the queue and then it all happens in slow motion. 

Saeko walks past her, someone bumps into her girlfriend’s arm which makes the pair stumble. Saeko's left shoulder knocks into Alisa, not hard enough to hurt or leave a mark, just enough that Alisa is sure she’s going to feel a burn from where Saeko's skin touched hers. 

“I’m sorry,” Saeko says without even looking at her, focusing on keeping herself and her girlfriend steady. 

And then just like that, they’re gone. Up the stairs, out of sight, out the door, gone.

Alisa has sobered up. 

At least she thinks so. 

She probably hasn’t, scientifically speaking, but it certainly feels like it.

She stands on the sidewalk, barefoot, and realizes that there are no cabs around. There’s no other option than to walk to the main street.

When she’s made it to the hotel room she’s temporarily staying at, she lies down in the bed alone. She’s too tired to do anything but too drunk to go to sleep just yet. She’s stuck in a state of in-between, like she seems to be all the time nowadays. She doesn’t have a permanent home anymore, just the funds to buy one should she want to. 

She feels a lump growing in her throat. 

She feels weird. 

Weird and sad. 

Sad that it didn’t work out between her and Saeko, sad that she’s lonely, sad that she feels jealous, mad that she feels jealous— because she really shouldn’t be. She should be happy for Saeko, happy that she’s moved on. Moved on to greater things. And a part of her is; A part of her never stopped loving her, doesn’t think she ever will. Because she was her first love, and seeing her happy, well, it lessens the ache a little bit. 

At least for now.


End file.
